From part-time gigs to now retiring on a high to be full-time YouTube content creators

Fairy tales, definition, are associated with happy endings. In sporting parlance, does it have to mean a winning end? Not if you are Gregory Mairs and Jenny Mairs. The English husband-wife duo, ranked 44 in the world, came into the All England Open with no major expectations. They, after all, had never won a match in the main draw of their home tournament in six previous attempts.Days before the 2025 edition, they had announced that this would be the last tournament of their professional careers. the time they were done – losing in the quarterfinals on Friday – they didn’t just reger their first-ever wins in Birmingham, they had dumped out two higher-ranked pairs and were the last-standing English contenders.
As their careers wound down with plenty of smiles and applause from the Utilita Arena crowd who brought the roof down for them, Greg threw his racket into the crowd and it was fittingly caught a person wearing “Badminton Insight” T-shirt, next to a big banner with the same words. That is the name of Greg and Jenny’s YouTube channel which, at the time of writing, has 589K subscribers and more than 83 million views for their 220+ videos so far.
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“As we were walking out of the arena we heard people shout: “Smash that subscribe button”, something which we say at the end of our videos,” Jenny had said on Wednesday. “We had a pizza restaurant booked (on the night of their first-round match) to celebrate our careers with our family,” Greg had said after they beat world No 12 Japan’s Hiroki Midorikawa and Natsu Saido in the round of 32. “It might have to be pasta instead.”
Greg and Jenny Mairs on their YouTube channel Badminton Insight
Admittedly, they played the best badminton of their careers in the last event as they went on to beat Ruttanapak Oupthong and Jhenicha Sudjaipraparat of Thailand to reach the quarterfinals as well, before eventually bowing out.
Life-changing click
They started Badminton Insight in April 2020 during the Covid-19 lockdown. Back in 2018, before the channel came into being they had to start a crowd-funding campaign for their first trip to Asia. Back then, Jenny (Moore as she was then known) was a Deliveroo rider working areas around the Loughborough town centre while Greg was a gatehouse security person, and also a part-time badminton coach at Nottingham Trent University. They were also pursuing a part-time Masters course. The YouTube channel, however, would prove life-changing.
Jenny used to work as a Deliveroo rider, working areas around the Loughborough town centre.
The initial few videos on their channel are about training drills that badminton players can do while at home, like wall-hitting. In their latest video posted on the Badminton Insight channel, Greg and Jenny, 30 and 29, explained why they are quitting the sport now. “We’ve had to be self-funded pretty much throughout our entire career and this has presented many challenges. Competing in Europe and on the World Tour isn’t cheap. So, we’ve always had to have various part-time jobs alongside training over five hours a day, whether that’s stringing rackets, coaching five nights a week or working for Domino’s or Deliveroo,” Jenny said. “More recently, we’re lucky enough this channel has enabled us to stop doing these part-time jobs and made it possible for us to keep playing professional badminton.”Story continues below this ad
Sanket Chaudhury, who works as the Digital Media Coordinator of the International Hockey Federation, is one of the many who have benefitted  through their videos. “In my twenties, when I started playing badminton, it proved difficult to get the guidance required to fix certain aspects of my game I was struggling with and that’s where Jenny and Gregory came in. I’d practise techniques they’d teach at home, probably back-hand smashed a couple of light bulbs in the process, try them out in a session and come back to see what went right, what went wrong, and what the next step should be.”

Sanket, 30, who plays badminton in Lausanne when he is working and in Mumbai when he is home, started gleaning much more than just technique from the channel. The Vlogs and other interactive videos involving players on tour, meant their channel was always more than just a technique guide for him. “It provided a great opportunity to connect with badminton, and badminton players, in a personal way.” That is the main reason, Greg and Jenny say,  they are stopping their professional careers to put all their efforts and time into the YouTube channel.
“We believe we can reach more people, make a bigger difference and also try to grow the sport we love in a way that we never could as professional players,” Greg said. “We get so many comments and messages from you all saying that our videos have inspired you to get back into playing or helped you to improve your game. And this is honestly why we started the channel and what we want to spend all of our time doing now,” Jenny added.
From working part-time gigs and crowd-funding a trip to Asia, the Mairs finished their careers with another fine performance where they punched above their collective weight. They are now full-time content creators, and in this sphere, they can call themselves pioneers.